1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of instant messaging and more particularly to presence awareness for instant message users in an instant messaging system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Real time communications systems provide a substantial enhancement over more traditional, asynchronous communications systems. Electronic mail delivery systems, the prototypical asynchronous communications systems, in its time represented a giant leap forward in respect to global interpersonal communications. Prior to electronic mail, individuals primarily communicated via telephone, facsimile and post. With electronic mail, however, individuals expect near instant delivery of text, and even imagery, audio and video, without incurring the delay typical of the postal system, or the expense associated with telephony and fax technologies.
Despite the ubiquity of electronic mail, asynchronous communications systems lack several elements common in the realm of real time communications systems. In particular, the seemingly instant delivery of a message cannot be experienced in the world of electronic mail. In a real-time society, the minor latencies associated with electronic mail often cannot be suitable for the task at hand where a real-time conversation will be required in addressing a problem or performing a collaborative task. More importantly, often the feel and nature of a “conversation” as it is known to human beings only can be approximated through real time communications where the participants to a conversation feel the spontaneity of an exchange of ideas, much as is the case in a live, face-to-face conversation.
The recent rapid development of the Internet has led to advanced modes of synchronous, real-time collaboration able to fulfill the real-time communicative requirements of the modern computing participant. Using the Internet as a backbone, individuals worldwide can converge in real-time in cyberspace to share ideas, documents and images in a manner not previously possible through conventional telephony and video conferencing. To facilitate collaboration over the Internet, a substantial collection of technologies and protocols have been assembled to effectively deliver audio, video and data over the single data communications medium of the Internet. These technologies include several human-to-human collaborative environments including instant messaging.
Conventional instant messaging systems allow users to exchange instant messages across a network. Instant messages generally are exchanged when individuals are online, though instant messages can be queued for individuals off-line or not proximate to the instant messaging client. To that end, instant messaging systems introduce semantics like online, away from desk, offline so that users are aware of each other's awareness status. Utilizing presence awareness, a collaborator can choose to send an instant message to an individual known to be online and expect the individual to receive the message instantaneously. By comparison, a collaborator can expect to send an instant message to an individual known to be away from their desk and expect the individual to receive the instant message upon returning.
In instances where a target user is known to be offline, a collaborator can choose to be alerted when the target user becomes online and available. The alert can include a notification sent to the collaborator. Upon receiving the alert, the collaborator can forward the instant message to the target user. While the alert feature has proven valuable to some, the value can be limited in that a target user may not come available for an extended period of time. In this circumstance, awaiting an alert can become an exercise in futility and an e-mail message can become a more appropriate mode of communications with the target user.